Guidance

2025 to 2026 funding claims guidance

Published 17 December 2025

Applies to England

1. Changes from 2024 to 2025

• we have removed the requirement to sign the final funding claim in the Manage your education and skills funding service. This change applies to all providers and means 16 to 19 funding is no longer included in the funding claims process. Providers delivering grant-funded adult provision must still submit mid-year, year-end, and final claims through the Submit Learner Data (SLD) portal
• if you do not submit your mid-year, year-end, or final funding claim by the deadlines in this guidance, we will treat your claim as a nil return. This means we will record no funding for your non-formula funded provision (i.e. funding not claimed through the individualised learner record (ILR)/earnings adjustment statement (EAS)). We will calculate your final reconciliation using the latest valid ILR/EAS data you have submitted, alongside the nil return for the non-formula funded provision. Once the claim window closes, you will not be able to amend your data, and full clawback of your allocation outside of the published thresholds will apply
• we have removed references to the Education and Skills Funding Agency and Department for Education. This guidance applies only to providers delivering grant-funded adult provision that is not devolved to a Strategic Authority

2.  Introduction

This document informs colleges and training providers of the funding streams that they are required to submit a funding claim for, how to make a claim and the dates for submitting a funding claim for funding year 2025 to 2026. This is a contractual requirement for the following funding streams:

• grant funded - adult skills fund (ASF)
• grant funded - free courses for jobs offer (FCFJ)
• grant funded - advanced learner loans bursary (ALLB)

Alongside this information you should read:

• ASF funding rules: 2025 to 2026
• advanced learner loans (ALL) funding and performance management rules: 2025 to 2026

3. Deadlines for submitting claims

The deadlines for each aspect of submitting the claim are in the table below. Failure to submit a claim by the due date will be a breach of the funding agreement. As we no longer require the form to be signed, we have extended the deadline to submit the claim.

Funding Claim	Deadline to provide ILR	Claim form available on SLD	Deadline to submit funding claim on SLD
R06 mid-year forecast funding claim	5 February 2026	9 February 2026	20 February 2026
R10 year-end forecast funding claim	4 June 2026	8 June 2026	19 June 2026
R14 final claim	22 October 2026	27 October 2026	6 November 2026

4. Where to complete and submit a claim

You must complete and submit your funding claim in the data collections area of the Submit learner data portal.

The funding claim form is available 2 working days after the close of the relevant ILR and EAS submission periods.

5. Completing a claim

5.1 Adult skills fund (grant funded) funding claims

Your ASF funding claim will show relevant sections for you to complete from the following:

• ASF adult skills – programme funding
• ASF adult skills – learning support
• ASF adult skills of which tailored learning
• ASF innovative provision
• ASF learner support – 19+ hardship
• ASF learner support – 20+ childcare
• ASF learner support – residential access funding
• ASF learner support – IT devices and connectivity costs
• ASF learner support – administration expenditure

The ASF funding rules: 2025 to 2026 set out the following, where applicable:

• you have the flexibility to use your tailored learning funding (stated in your funding agreement) in line with the ASF formula funded methodology (funding model 38), to meet local demand
• you must not claim more than 5% of your total learner support as administration expenditure
• the eligibility requirements and the maximum amount of funding you can draw down for innovative provision

Any claims you submit must be supported by the relevant funding and monitoring (FAM) codes in your ILR return for the relevant reporting period. If your data does not support your year to date or future claim, we will take action to ensure that your claim represents value for money and data is timely and accurate.

5.2 Adult skills fund - free courses for jobs offer (grant funded)

Your ASF funding claim will show relevant sections for you to complete from the following:

• ASF free courses for jobs offer – programme funding
• ASF free courses for jobs offer – learning support
• ASF free courses for jobs offer learner support – 19+ hardship
• ASF free courses for jobs offer learner support – 20+ childcare
• ASF free courses for jobs offer learner support – residential access funding
• ASF free courses for jobs offer learner support – IT devices and connectivity costs
• ASF free courses for jobs offer – administration expenditure

You must not claim more than 5% of your total FCFJ offer learner support expenditure claim as administration expenditure.

Any claims you submit must be supported by the relevant FAM codes in your ILR return for the relevant reporting period. If your data does not support your year to date or future claim, we will take action to ensure that your claim represents value for money and data is timely and accurate.

5.3 Advanced learner loans bursary funding claims

If you are paid on profile for your ALLB allocation, you are required to complete a funding claim. Your ALLB funding claim will show relevant sections for you to complete from the following:

• bursary funding
• hardship
• childcare
• residential access fund
• area costs
• excess claims
• administration expenditure

As set out in the ‘advanced learner loans bursary fund’ section in the ALL funding and performance management rules: 2025 to 2026, you can claim up to 5% of your loans bursary expenditure for learner support activities (hardship, childcare and residential access fund) on administration expenditure.

Any claims you submit must be supported by relevant learner support reason (LSR) and ALLB funding FAM codes in your ILR return for the relevant reporting period. If your data does not support your year to date or future claim, we will take action to ensure that your claim represents value for money and data is timely and accurate.

5.4 Project simplification pilot providers

We will send detailed instructions on how to submit mid-year, year-end and final funding claims to providers that are a part of the adult project simplification pilot. 

You will still be required to submit your claim via SLD within the deadlines published at section 3 of this guidance.

5.5 16 to 19 education claims

We have removed the requirement for providers to sign the R14 final funding claim, therefore there is no action to take for 16 to 19 funding as they are now excluded from the funding claim process.

The final year performance for 16 to 19 funding will be identified through the 16 to 19 ILR funding reports from the latest valid ILR submission, usually the R14 final ILR submission.

6. Relevant to all funding claims

For all formula funded deliverable lines, we will pre-populate the ‘delivery to date’ figures on the claim form based on your ILR/EAS data submissions. You will not be able to amend this data. You should submit ILR data returns from R04 onwards, as set out in the ILR specification 2025 to 2026 - data collection timetable.

For all non-formula funded deliverable lines, for example, tailored learning or learner support, you will need to enter a figure from your own records.

As a provider, you need to fill in the ‘forecasted delivery’ for each field for the mid-year forecast claim and year-end forecast funding claim for the rest of the year. This forecast does not get used for setting allocations. We use forecasts to understand the wider performance of the sector and to manage budgets. Therefore, the forecast you provide in your mid-year and year-end forecast funding claims must be realistic. It must be based on actual and/or expected demand.

We will assure your mid-year and year-end learner support claims to identify where claims have been made without references to ‘LSR’ codes and where there is a high average cost per identified learner and will contact providers accordingly.  

Before submitting your forecast, you must ensure any funding errors identified in the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard have been corrected in your latest data return. We will calculate provisional error values based on your data which we will include as an adjustment in your indication reconciliation statement to illustrate the potential impact when you submit your final claim. 

In your final funding claim, you only need to agree the figures, as we will use your ILR/EAS to pre-populate your actual delivery figures. We will account for any monitoring errors identified in your ILR data submission at this point. You will still need to enter figures for non-formula funded deliverable lines.

We will publish a user guide document giving further information on how to submit your funding claim. The user guides will be available before the claims open in February, June and October.

7. If you do not submit your funding claim

If you do not submit a required funding claim in accordance with the dates above, then we will issue a breach notice, as this is a contractual requirement. Your claim will also be treated as a nil return. This means no funding will be recorded for the following non-formula funded aspects:

• adult skills fund
  • tailored learning
  • innovative provision
  • learner support (all elements)
• free courses for jobs
  • learner support (all elements)
  • admin expenditure
• advanced learner loans bursary
  • hardship
  • childcare
  • residential access fund
  • admin expenditure

We will calculate your final reconciliation using the latest available ILR and/or EAS data (usually from the final R14 submission) alongside the nil return. After the mid-year and year-end claims, you still can correct the nil return reconciliation by ensuring you accurately submit your final funding claim by the deadline. However, at final claim, once the claim form submission window closes in SLD, there is no way to submit your data and therefore clawback of your allocation outside of the published thresholds will apply.

8. Exceptional adjustments

Your final claim form will include an exceptional adjustment field for any pre-populated delivery figures that have been taken from your ILR or EAS returns. As set out in your contract for delivery, your data returns must be correct and if you have submitted an exceptional adjustment within the 3 previous academic years, we will automatically reject these adjustments.

If you do include any exceptional adjustments in your final funding claim, you must send supporting evidence within 5 working days of your claim being submitted. Your evidence must be submitted via the customer help portal, and clearly marked as relating to your 2025 to 2026 final funding claim. 

If you’re submitting evidence for more than one adjustment, you must make sure it is clear which evidence supports each adjustment. If this is not clear, it could delay the review of your case.

Your case will be reviewed to confirm whether the exceptional adjustment reflects a data error affecting 5% or more of the appropriate contract value, such as:

• your ASF contract value is £100,000. We would only consider your exceptional adjustment if the amount you enter is more than £5,000
• your ALLB bursary contract value is £50,000. We would only consider your exceptional adjustment if the amount you enter is more than £2,500

Adjustments below the threshold will normally be rejected. However, negative adjustments where you are due to return funding will still be accepted. All exceptional adjustments are subject to affordability, and the outcome of your case will be reflected in your final reconciliation statement.

8.1 What to include in your evidence 

Please provide:

1. Why the adjustment was needed  - explain the issue and why you made the adjustment.

2. Proof of the error and its impact  - include learner-level details like: 
   • Unique Learner Number (ULN) or student reference numbers 
   • cost and/or spending details to support your claim  - do not include personal data (for example - names, dates of birth, addresses) to comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
3. Any extra information  - add anything else that supports your case. 

Important

If you do not send your evidence within 5 working days, your adjustment will be removed and will not appear in your final reconciliation statement. 

9. Audit

The ILR data return and EAS are subject to audit and assurance processes to verify the accuracy of funding claimed by a provider. We will monitor tailored learning and support funding through the ILR, EAS and claim submissions from the mid-year claim point onwards. We will also compare your costs to the volume of learners you have recorded and may request additional evidence if required.

All providers must ensure that appropriate audit evidence is retained to support the ILR, EAS and all other returns submitted. Where overclaims are identified we may instigate recovery action through data adjustments, offsetting or by invoice.

If your auditor tells you that you must make an adjustment because of an audit, you must amend your ILR data or make the agreed adjustment using EAS.

10. Reconciliation statements

For mid-year funding claims, we will not issue any reconciliation statements.

For the following funding streams, we will issue an indicative and final reconciliation statement:

• ASF  – adult skills and tailored learning – grant-funded
• ASF innovative provision
• ASF – free courses for jobs offer – grant funded
• ALLB – grant-funded

We will issue indicative and final reconciliation statements through the Manage your education and skills funding service after your submitted year-end forecast and final funding claims.

The indicative statement will give you an indication of the funding you may need to pay back to us or if an additional payment maybe due. The final statement will confirm the amount to be paid back or if an additional payment is due. The thresholds that will be applied to calculate the amount to be paid back or if an additional payment is due is published in the ASF funding rules: 2025 to 2026.

Where provision was grant-funded, we will process monitoring errors identified in your R14 ILR data submission as an adjustment to your final reconciliation statement. If we are not satisfied that provision identified in the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard is eligible, we may need to request further evidence demonstrating the learners’ eligibility before we can publish your statement.

If you must pay amounts back to us, we will schedule those repayments from December 2026.

If you have an issue with your reconciliation value, you must tell us by 31 December 2026. We will not consider any requests after this date. We will publish your reconciliation statement(s) by 27 November 2026.

11. Exceptional Learning Support

If you need to claim for learning support costs over £19,000, you must go through the ELS process at the beginning of the learner’s programme. You can submit estimated costs and final claims for ELS by completing the exceptional learning support cost form. All ELS claims will be subject to affordability.

You must only claim the amount above £19,000 through the ELS process. The amount up to £19,000 in total should be claimed through a combination (where applicable) of the £150 a month in the ILR and the remaining amount up to £19,000 via the earnings adjustment statement.

You must submit the ELS cost form, via Document exchange, ensuring that you select ‘exceptional learner support’ as the document’s purpose. Do not include learner names, initials or other personal information in the file titles when uploading your cost forms. Including personal identifiers is a breach of GDPR. Uploaded files should contain only the ULN for identification purposes.

We will not download or process files that do not follow this protocol.

For full instructions, please refer to section 1 of the ELS cost form for 2025 to 2026. If you do not have access to DfE Sign-in, please speak to your organisation’s Super User in the first instance. Alternatively, contact us via the customer help portal.

Please contact your Strategic Authority for support funding for learners funded through devolved ASF arrangements.

For further information about ELS please refer to the relevant section of the ASF funding: 2025 to 2026.